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THE SEA AND THE CHURCH : 



THEIR 



MUTUAL RELATIONS AND DEPENDENCE. 



AN ADDEESS 



DELIVERED AT EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, ON TUESDAY, JULY 

27th, BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF LA FAYETTE COLLEGE, 

PRECEDING COMMENCEMENT, 



REV. CHARLES J. JONES, 

PASTOR OF THE MARINERS' CHURCH, CORNER OP MADISON AND CATHARINE 
STREETS. NEW YORK. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE ASSOCIATION. 

s73 




* 5 NEW YORK: 

THOMAS HOLMAN, STEAM PRINTER, CORNER CENTRE AND AVHITE STS. 

1858. 

i 



,j- 7 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

CHARLES J. JONES, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of New York. 



ADDKESS. 



"A hundred thousand welaomes ! 
I could weep, 
And I could laugh ; I am light and heayy : 

Welcome ! 
Absence, with all its pains, 

Is by this charming moment wiped away." 

Fellow Alumni, — The kind Providence which has trans- 
ferred me from the position of Alternate to that of Principal, 
and which makes it alike my duty and my privilege to greet 
you on this interesting occasion, is to me a source of gratitude 
and joy. Twelve years have passed away since, with my class- 
mates, I finished the curriculum of college studies, and bid fare- 
well to college scenes. I then became an alumnus of La Fayette, 
a member of this Association. As such, I have ever cherished 
an affectionate remembrance of my Alma Mater, and have often 
yearned for the opportunity to return, and revive the associa- 
tions of those pleasant times, when class-room and corridor re- 
sounded to our voice and tread ; and when, in the college chapel, 
we were wont to call upon the God of our fathers, and invoke 
the strength necessary to meet the onset of opposing forces in 
the distant future. You will bear me witness to the interest 
and zeal with which we anticipated the battles of life in those 
mimic contests, of which the admiring or reproving world was 
our own Literary Society ; and the arena, our Washington or 
Franklin Hall. 

What was then the future, has now become the past. But 
Memory, the enchantress, with her magic wand, evokes 

" From the shadowy past, 
The forms that once have been ;" 

and, to-day, familiar faces pass before us. Some in the vigor 
of a useful and honorable manhood, and some in the cerements 
of the grave, beckoning us on to the goal of future conquests, 
or pointing to the narrow house appointed for all the living ; 



some aspiring to worldly honors and emoluments, and some 
striving for a heavenly crown ; some seeking the meed of 
human tongues, and some waiting for the Saviour's " Well 
done ! " 

Where are they now ? Some are battling nobly in the 
world's conflicts, and some have reached their final home. 

" Alas ! 
Like the bright dew-drops in the grass, 
They pass'd away." 

A few are here, met to revive the past — to cluster around the 
lap of our fruitful mother, and recount the blessings derived 
from her care and instruction. We are here to renew our 
filial vows — to assure her of our ripening affection, and of our 
determined effort to be worthy of her love. We meet to 
quicken our Christian graces, and, by a mutual interchange of 
thought and feeling and fraternal sympathy, to gird ourselves 
anew for the conflicts of life. We are here to greet and 
encourage each other — to spend an hour, and pass on and 
mingle again with the busy bustling world. That hour I am 
to occupy — a winged hour, freighted with important interests, 
and waiting to fly, with its burden of good or ill, to the bar of 
the Eternal God. How shall it be spent ? 

Did my ability correspond with my desire, the theme should 
be worthy of its heaven-born messenger, adapted to the occa- 
sion, and meet for the approval of our final Judge. But, alas ! 
I fear that, in all these, it will come far short of my own 
standard even ; how much more, then, of His, whose "judgments 
are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out ! " The theme 
selected for this occasion is, 

"The Sea and the Church — Their Mutual Relations 
and Dependence." 

The subject may appear a novel one for an alumni address. 
Yet is it by no means destitute of a literary character, or so 
barren of classical allusion, as to be wanting in interest to this 
Association. It is, however, in the estimation of the writer, 
and notwithstanding its novelty, a subject of vast practical 
importance, both to the world and to the Church. And, though 
it may be somewhat difficult to discover, at first sight, the 



almost invisible link in the chain of divinely arranged sequences, 
by which the Sea and the Church are indissolubly joined in the 
providence, as well as in the purpose, of God ; I am prepared to 
show the existence of such a connection. And not only so ; it 
is capable of demonstration that they are related to, and 
dependent on, each other. 

The sources whence the evidence is derived are History and 
Revelation. Both these I have freely consulted ; and, though 
I have no desire to deprecate criticism, I may state in the out- 
set, that the arrangement is alone claimed to be original. The 
facts I have gathered from every source, as the bee gathers 
honey from every flower. 

As the hieroglyphs of a former civilization, when rendered 
legible by the light of modern science, have revealed to us 
much that was otherwise enveloped in obscurity, or entirely 
unknown ; so, by the brightness of the revealed word, and the 
scattered rays of historic light, we may be able to trace, even 
on the trackless waters of the great deep, the stately steppings 
of a covenant keeping God. To both these sources must we go 
for information. Nor shall we go in vain. 

But to trace this relation and dependence ab origine, we 
must ascend the stream of history almost to its source. We 
must visit ancient routes of commerce, tread the streets of 
deserted cities, wander amid ruins of former greatness, and 
wend our solitary way among desolated temples of religion 
and art, where splintered frieze, and shattered architrave, 
truncated column, and broken plinth, and fallen capital, 
strewed thick in the pathway, invite to contemplation ; where 
mementoes of luxury and art, of beauty and loveliness, of 
Titanic effort and decorative taste, are mingled with the 
desert sands. There is something mournful, I admit, in thus 
treading upon the debris of nations, and wandering in the 
graveyards of the desolate past. But it is useful, though 
mournful. 

There are voices, inaudible to some, that float upon the air. 
There are invisible characters written upon these relics, which 
the eye of the soul perceives and appreciates ; epitaphs, which 
the passing stranger may run and read. 

But, hear we, amid these ruins of empire, any sigh of the 



ocean ? Read we aught, among these relics of the past, that 
pertains to the history of the Sea ? Yea, verily. The sea- 
shell, whose living occupant has deserted it for centuries, sings 
not more faithfully and mournfully of its ocean home, than 
these emblems of departed greatness tell of the triumphs of the 
Sea. They call up, in panoramic array, the busy throngs that 
once crowded their marts, as Luxor and Karnac tell of the 
merchants who were princes, and the traffickers, who were the 
honorable of the earth. They tell of the commerce that once 
enriched them ; of the ships that lined their quays, and dis- 
charged the products of other climes upon their shores ; of 
artificial roads centring there, and forming so many avenues 
by which wealth was brought to the nation's coffers ; of the 
palatial residences, that lined those broad ways ; of the out- 
skirt villages ; of well cultivated fields and rich harvests ; 
of gigantic water-works, and endless canals ; and of all the 
appliances of luxury and wealth with which cities are always 
associated. But, powerful as weird Fancy is, and ready as 
she is to restore the massive structures to their pristine grand- 
eur and beauty, we depend not on her magic wand. We need 
not her airy nothings to instruct us, while we may invoke the 
shades of a Clio, and read from her pictured scroll enough 
to convince us of the existence of the connection of which we 
speak. 

Before consulting the historic page, however, let us glance 
for a moment at the relative position of that large portion of 
the earth's surface, which we call the Sea, or Ocean, and mark 
its importance, in the economy of nature, in the general, before 
we examine its influence on the nations in particular. 

The simple fact, that near three-fourths of the superficies of 
our planet is covered with water, is enough to convince us of 
its importance and value ; since this proportion of water to the 
land is an exhibition of that divine wisdom, that never errs. 

Reasons, for this apparently disproportion ed allotment of 
sea and land, God has not given, and, yet, such reasons must 
exist, seeing that the earth was prepared for man, and, being 
prepared, was pronounced in the councils of eternity to be 
"very good." That testimony, God, in his condescension to 
human weakness and ignorance, has permitted to be corrobo- 



rated by the voice of Nature, who, in all departments of her 
active economy, while absorbing the riches of the Sea, notwith- 
standing its storms and devastations, its wrecks and floods, 
echoes back the plaudit of Jehovah, and proclaims it very 
good. Yet, how does it appear to uncultivated humanity ? To 
barbaric eyes, it presents itself as a formidable barrier to all 
outside intercourse. To the Egyptians, in their early history, 
the Sea was an unclean thing, and they who traversed its wide 
waste of waters, unharmed, were considered haters of the gods, 
whose daring was only permitted to go unpunished long enough 
to secure their destruction, and with whom it was sacrilege to 
hold any communication. Plato declared the Sea to be " the 
schoolmaster of all vice and dishonesty." The Latins held the 
maxim : 

' ' Qui nescit orare 
Discat navigare." 

Science, however, has robbed the Sea of many of its terrors, 
and presented it to us in an entirely different aspect. 

The Sea is now known to have its uses, and to teach its 
lessons. It is the great fertilizer of the land, the equalizer of 
heat, and the regulator of climate. In connection with the 
sun, it fills the bottles of heaven, and thus prepares the rain for 
the "green herb," and the "dew for the tender grass." It 
purifies the atmosphere, and aids in sustaining animal life. By 
giving force and direction to the winds, it facilitates the inter- 
course of man with man. It thus becomes a great moral 
instructor, teaching mankind, by affording facilities for a 
constant interchange of commodities and benefits, their mutual 
dependence and obligations, and their relations to each other, 
as members of one great family, having a common parentage, a 
common inheritance, common wants, and a common destiny. 

It may be well, before proceeding further, to define the 
words " Sea" and " Church" as used here ; inasmuch as I mean 
somewhat more than is generally supposed to be included in 
these terms. 

You will pardon me, I know, if I seem to have assumed 
poetic license in this matter ; because, if the boundaries of the 
domain, which I conceive to be embraced in these expressions, 



be but fully understood, there can be but little fear of any one 
being led astray by them. 

By the "Sea" then, I mean not only the body of waters so 
called, that 

' ; Original 
Unmarr'd, unfaded work of Deity, 
That roll'd the wild, profound, eternal bass 
In Nature's anthem." 

but I include, also, all that appertains to it, viz., its navigation, 
its commerce, its wars, its discoveries, its wealth, its influence, 
and its hardy men ; for by all these agencies, the Sea, like the 
Earth, in the Apocalypse, has helped the woman — the Church — 
to her present dominion and power ; and by these, consecrated 
to, and concentrated on her, by the grace of God, must her final 
conquests be won. 

So in the words " the Church" I include more than the idea 
of ecclesiastical relationship. I do not confine the term to a 
mere body of believers, any more than I confine the word 
" Sea "• to a mere body of waters ; but include under it all that 
pertains to the best interests of man ; all that tends to the im- 
provement of the race in the advancements of civilization and 
social intercourse, the extension of the area of true knowledge 
and of personal independence, or individual and popular liberty, 
and the dissemination of the truth of God, as it shines in the 
face of Jesus Christ. Mils verbis. Its indirect, as well as its. 
direct, influence on the Gospel of Christ. 

That the Sea and the Church, taken in this sense, are related 
to, and mutually dependent on, each other, I presume none will 
deny. Nay, more. In every well stored mind, the two must 
be so intimately associated, as to make the impossibility of dis- 
sociating the one from the other far greater than that of per- 
ceiving their relations and dependence. 

The Church looks upon the Sea as a powerful auxiliary in 
the extension of her dominion, and of the Redeemer's glory, 
among the nations. And the Sea acknowledges itself to be 
dependent for its triumphs, for the successful execution of its 
mission, on the refining, elevating, and sanctifying influences 
of the Church. So that the evangelization of the globe is the 
resultant of these two mighty forces. And, in the words of 
another, on a kindred subject, it may be truly said : 



9 

"The heathen nations have learned, and are learning, to 
associate the one with the other. The impression is fast 
becoming fixed in the faith of the world, that the two are, in 
fact, blended, and are to be blended ; that where the one 
prevails, the other will prevail also ; and that if men will have 
the one, they must welcome to their bosoms, also, the other. 
The great fact can not be concealed that, where Christianity 
prevails, there, also, civil liberty prevails ; that there the highest 
point has been reached in navigation, in manufactures, in legal 
and medical knowledge, in the arts, in the spirit of enterprise 
and adventure. Whether these things may be valued or not, the 
fact is seen and admitted. * * * * There is no impres. 
sion that is more certain to become established among the 
nations, than that, for some cause, Christianity, refinement, the 
arts, the sciences, and the influences of the press, have a mys- 
terious, but certain, connection. Every year tends to confirm 
this impression ; every missionary that we send out confirms 
it ; every ship that visits a barbarous coast ; every press that 
we establish among the heathen ; every book that we print and 
circulate there, tends to confirm it." — Barne's Miscellany, vol. 
2, p. 109, 110. 

"Art thrives most 
Where commerce has enriched the busy coasts ; 
He catches all improvements in his flight, 
Spreads foreign wonders in his country's sight, 
Imports what others have invented well, 
And stirs his own to match them, or excel. 
'Tis thus reciprocating, each with each, 
Alternately the nations learn and teach ; 
While Providence eojoins to every soul, 
An union with the vast terraqueous whole." — Cowper. 

History, which is but a record of God's providences, reveals 
clearly the fact, that, in the providence of God, the Sea was 
very early associated, in the minds of men, with their religious 
ideas. The skill and daring exhibited by those who ventured 
on the treacherous sea, and gave themselves up to the sport of 
the capricious winds, were considered evidences of the exist- 
ence of the Divine in man. Hence, the people of the early 
ages, the Egyptians excepted, and they only for a time, did 
honor to the bold adventurers, who launched forth upon the- 



10 

unknown and trackless deep, by enrolling their names among 
the gods. Nay, more. They caught the splendor of their 
brilliant achievements — brilliant even in that heroic age ; and, 
that coming generations might not neglect to do them honor 
also, they gave them a grateful apotheosis, by studding the 
baldrick of night with star-jeweled constellations, called after 
their names. 

These acts of a gratified and wondering people do most 
assuredly certify to their high appreciation of the wanderers of 
the Sea. Do we find any basis for a like appreciation of the 
character, condition, and influence of the sailor of the present 
day? 

Our superior light will prevent our ascribing to the seamen, 
as a class, the attributes of the Deity, it is true. But shall we 
not acknowledge their preeminent usefulness ? We may not 
esteem the sailor a demi-god ; but let us not forget that he is a 
man — and a man. too, of boundless influence for good or ill. 

By way of pointing out the importance attached to the Sea, 
and its navigators, let me simply premise the fact, that the 
mariner can be spared from no department of human knowledge. 
If taken from History, they leave a chasm no class of men can 
fill ; for the path of empire has been over the Sea. 

The dominion of the Sea enabled Spain and Portugal * to 
divide the world between them ; the one taking all to the west, 
the other all to the east, of a meridian line, mutually agreed 
upon, and running from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west 
■of the Azores. The possession of the Sea, at a subsequent date, 
gave to the previously obscure people of the Netherlands, the 
superiority over both Spaniards and Portuguese ; secured to 
them the rich commerce of India, and (after wresting their own 
territory from the very waves) enabled them to hurl defiance in 
the face of that puissant monarch, Charles the Fifth, in the very 
noontide of his political greatness. t And the present proud 



* Emmanuel, of Portugal, by a bull of the reigning Pope, was styled "Lord 
of the Navigation, Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India." 
— Lusiad, p. 84. 

f " Their geographical position was, in many respects, disadvantageous ; but 
they triumphed over all the difficulties, and defended themselves against all the 



11 

position of England and America is but a convincing proof of 
the truthfulness of the apothegm of the renowned Themistocles, 
the admiral of the Grecian fleet : 

" Qui mare teneat, 
Eum necesse est rerum potiri." 

Take from history the record of the conquests and discov- 
eries, the rise and fall of cities and nations, the changes in the 
routes of commerce, and all the improvements on the earth's 
surface, which have resulted from the energy and influence of 
the sailor, and you will be astonished at the blank. Why, you 
must remove from the map of the world the entire continent of 
America, and submerge more than four-fifths of the islands of 
the Sea. You must blot out the record of the Pelasgic migra- 
tions ; of Etruscan civilization ; of Tyrian explorations and 
colonies ; of the Grecian conquests ; the Periplus of Hanno ; 
the commercial glory of Carthage ; the extension of the Roman 
power ; the Punic wars ; the celebrated voyage of Nearchus ; 
the founding of Alexandria ; the adventures of Eudoxus, of 
Cyzicus ; the exploits of Hippalus (the Columbus of the later 
Ptolemean age) ; the rise of Venice and Genoa ; the commercial 
grandeur of the mediaeval republics ; the voyages of Columbus 
and Cabot ; the long wars of the Netherlands ; the passage of 
the Mayflower; and the commerce of the world. 



exposures of their situation. Their territory was contracted, but they applied 
an enlightened genius and a laborious perseverance to its enlargement, and the 
ocean, itself, was pushed back from its shores to make room for their multiplying 
millions. They had not, on all their surface, the requisite materials to build a 
boat, but every sea was shaded by the canvas of their costly merchantmen, and 
swept by the cannon of their exulting navies. In the time of Sir Josiah Child, 
which was several years after the British Navigation Act had begun to operate 
effectually in checking and reducing the power of Holland, the Dutch were still 
in full possession of the trade to Russia, Greenland, Portugal, Spain, Norway, 
Ireland, Scotland, the East Indies, China, Japan, the Mediterranean, South 
America, New York, and, through New York, the British American colonies, to 
a considerable extent. 

" Holland, being not so big as one of our shires in England, containing not 
above twenty-eight miles in length, and twenty-three in breadth, have increased 
the number of their shipping to at least ten thousand sail, and to that number 
they add, in a manner, daily, although the country itself affords them neither 
materials, nor victuals, nor merchandise, to be accounted of, toward their setting 
forth."— Hunt's Merchants' Mag., May, 1841, pp. 398, 39,9. 



12 

The four great enterprises of the present da}', and for which 
this nineteenth century will be justly famous in all coming time, 
viz., the exploration of the Dead Sea ; the opening up to 
commerce of the ports of Japan ; and the introduction, among 
that exclusive people, of the steam engine and magnetic 
telegraph ; the surveying of the route for a ship canal, without 
locks, to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific ; and the 
union of England and America, by means of the transatlantic 
telegraph cable ; all these have been, or are yet, in progress of 
accomplishment by the men of the Sea.* For these exploits, a 
mythic age would, doubtless, have given them a niche in the 
Pantheon, and have ranked them with the gods. Concerning 
such men, may we not ask, with Eschylus : 

" Who, for the palm, in contest high shall join ? 
Or who, in equal ranks, shall stand ? " 

And what, I ask, is Mythology, stripped of the demi-gods of 
the Sea ? Without Jason and the Argo ; Orpheus and his lyre ; 
Perseus and the Gorgon head ; Theseus and the Minotaur ; 
without Castor and Pollux ; Neptune and Thetis ; Achilles and 
Ulysses ; Phrixus and Helle* ; without these, and a thousand 
others, what is Mythology ? Who were the Argonautae, but 
the sailors of the Argo ? 

Orpheus, at the music of whose lyre " stones and trees were 
moved, rivers ceased to flow, and savage beasts became mild." 
Orpheus, whose sweet strains made even Pluto relent, and 
Tartarus give up its prey ; and who is said to have " excelled 
all the world in genius and knowl'edge,"t was one of these 
very sailors. 

In the Classics, you will say, " We can certainly dispense with 
the sailor." Let us see. Take from the domain of classic liter- 



* Since the above was written, the tidings have flashed upon us from Trinity 
Bay, N. F. : "August 7, 1858. — The telegraph cable is successfully laid. The 
Agamemnon has landed her end of the cable, and we are now receiving signals 
from the telegraph house at Valencia." 

The spirit which actuated those engaged in this important enterprise, is mani- 
fest in the following dispatch from the Commander of the Niagara: "God has 
been with us. The telegraph cable is laid without accident. To Him be all 
the glory. We are all well. Wm. L. Hudson." 

f Vid. Larcher's Notes on Herodotus. London, 1844. vol. i., p. 303. 



13 

ature the name and the fame of Cadmus, who gave letters to 
Greece ; the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer ; the severe Iambics 
of Archilochus ; the JEneids of Virgil ; the Tragedies of 
Eschylus, who himself took part in the sea-fight of Salamis ; 
the Medea and Heraclidce of Euripides ; all based on the 
exploits of the men of the Sea. Take these, I say from classic 
literature, and what a gap is made ! Again, take from the 
pages of general literature all that pertains to the Sea, in the 
writings of Plutarch, of Ptolemy, of Aristotle, and of Pliny the 
Elder (who was in command of a fleet at the time of his death) ; 
the Telemachus of Fenelon, and that great epic of the Sea, the 
Lusiad, by Camoens, for many years a sailor, and all that 
pertains to voyages and discoveries. Take these away, and 
what remains is a disjointed mass, of but little interest or worth. 

You will bear me witness, I know, when I say that in Bio- 
graphy there would be a wide, wide blank, if the names of 
heroic men, who have gained honor and distinction for 
themselves upon the Sea, were left out. If such names as 
Columbus and Cabot, Vasco de Gama and Magellan, Hudson, 
Drake, and Frobisher, Smith and De Yries, Cook and Kane ; 
if these were left out, we should have but the skeleton of 
Biography, without muscle or integument or show of life ; or, 
to be histrionic, " the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.' 7 
And oh ! what confusion would accrue to Geography, if the 
name of the sailor were extinguished from the headlands and 
bays, the promontories and gulfs, the islands and straits, that 
are now called after their discoverers ! 

Theology itself, the science of God, can not be dissociated 
from the mariner. And though the Sea has given to us one 
great heresiarch, Marcion, the mariner of Sinope, the antidote 
was presented by Hippolytus, the Episcopus Portuensis, who, 
at the Ostia, in the third century, wrote against all heresies, 
and dispensed the Gospel of Christ to the men of the Sea. 

Do you accuse me of attaching too much importance to these 
sons of the deep ? Am I overrating their value to the Church 
and the world ? I state only what will be found to accord 
with the facts of history. And I ask, if they, who have soared 
into the heavens with Newton and Arago, or descended into 
the crypts of the earth, with Miller and Silliman ; or, who have 



14 

explored the fields of science with Davy and Henry ; if, I say, 
these are entitled to our esteem, then we may not withhold it 
from the sons of the Sea, whose researches on their own 
element have entitled them to be considered the benefactors of 
the race. 

If we honor a Herschell, because he has, through long and 
wearisome nights, directed the far-seeing tube to the heavens, 
and gazed into the depths of space, until some nebulous mass 
in the sethereal profound has been resolved into systems of 
worlds, should we not, also, honor the hardy mariner, launching 
forth into unknown seas, and, through tedious days and sleep- 
less nights, cleaving, with venturous keel, waters before un- 
whitened by a sail ; and who pierces, with daring prow/ the 
mythic cloudland of the West, until clusters of islands open to 
the sight, and another hemisphere is given to the world ? 

But to return. Let me invite you to contemplate, for a brief 
season, the arrangements of Divine Providence, by which the 
Sea is made ancillary to the Church of God. 

The first instance, based on reliable authority, is that record- 
ed in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, in which the seamen 
of Tyre are found associated with the servants of David and 
Solomon, in the procuring of the material for the construction 
of the Temple of God, which was erected on Mount Moriah, by 
King Solomon. We read in the Word of God (1 Kings, ix. 
26-28), "And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion- 
geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in 
the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, 
shipmen that had knowledge of the Sea, with the servants of 
Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence 
gold, four hundred and twenty talents (over a hundred millions 
of dollars), and brought it to Solomon." Here, then, is an 
account of the very incipiency of the navy of Solomon ; through 
the agency of which he was enabled, subsequently, to amass 
such wealth, that, in his reign, silver was "in Jerusalem as 
stones," and " was nothing accounted of." Here, too, are men 
found ready to hand, who are called " shipmen that had know- 
ledge of the Sea," and who accomplish a difficult foreign voyage 
to a port, or ports, in the Indian Ocean, to whom they are, 
evidently, no strangers, and bring back, for religious purposes, 



15 

an almost incredible amount of wealth, which, in the aggregate, 
must be counted by thousands of millions. 

Who are these men, whose influence is such, at this early 

day, as to secure an alliance with Israel, in the very zenith of 

\ her national glory ? The people with whom Solomon, as well 

'as his illustrious father, found it desirable to be associated, in 

order to carry out the purpose of God, could have been no 

obscure and uncultivated or barbarous race. 

The nation who supplied that wise king with artificers in 
metal, with raftsmen and pilots, and " shipmen who had know- 
ledge of the Sea ;" who laid the world under tribute to maintain 
its Commerce ; whose vessels were models of beauty, built of 
the firs of Senir ; with cedars of Lebanon for masts ; oaks of 
Bashan for oars ; ivory from Chittim for benches ; and " fine 
linen, \ with embroidered work of Egypt, for sails ;" and who 
was replenished and made glorious in the midst of the Seas. 
Such a people must have been already far advanced in the arts 
of civilized life, and in the possession of no ordinary facilities 
for extended intercourse. And such, indeed, were the Phoeni- 
cians. A reference to their early history carries us as far back, 
in the estimation of some, as the dispersion of the races at 
Babel, and identifies them with the Hycsos* or shepherd kings, 
who were expelled from Egypt, and whose name Philition (or 
Philistine) is found inscribed on the pyramids of Egypt ; and 
who, after their dispersion, under the names of Phoenicians, 
Pelasgi, and Cyclopes, peopled the shores and islands of the 
Mediterranean Sea, and were, subsequently, driven forth from 
Tyre and Zidon, from Athens and from Carthage, and, finally, 
came to the shores of this land, " where traces of their build- 
ings, and, it has been supposed, of their costume, as represented 
in Egyptian sculpture, have been discovered."t 

It is not my purpose here, however, to discuss the origin of 



* " These were their first kings, and were desirous to extirpate the Egyptians. 
These people were called Royal Pastors: Hyc, in the sacred tongue, being a 
King, and Sos, in the vulgar tongue, a Pastor." * * * " Their power was prior to 
Joseph's. Probably on this account the Egyptians were averse to shepherds." 
* * * " Diodorus, in Photius, tells us many of these were followers of Cadmus to 
Greece ; also of Danaus."— Williams' Prim. His. L. 3. passim. 

t Vid. Pyramids of Gizeh, vol. ii., p. 181. 



16 

this wonderful people, whose genius and enterprise, whose 
endurance and independence, distinguish them as the master 
minds of the ancient world. It is sufficient to show, that the 
scripture history represents them as associated with the chil- 
dren of God at an early day, and as known to them for their 
prowess "before the conquest of Canaan. 

They claim to have come from the Persian Gulf, and located 
themselves on the Syrian coast more than two thousand years 
B.C. They there founded Zidon, a maritime city, holding the 
second place, in point of antiquity, in the world. It was 
known as the " Great Zidon," in the days of Joshua (xi. 8, 
xix. 28); and in the allotment of the tribes, as the boundary 
town of Asher and Zebulon. Subsequently, Tyre, the " daugh- 
ter of Zidon," was colonized, and, in the race for preeminence, 
soon outstripped the parent city, and became herself the mother 
of nations ; having scattered her colonies on the isles of the 
iEgean, and all along the coast of Western Asia (where they 
built Ephesus, Miletus, Phocea, and other cities), and on the 
northern and western shores of Africa, as far south as the 
Gambia. About the time of Moses, " long before the beginning 
of classical history," they are said to have founded Gades * and 
Tartessus (v. Tarshish), on the coast of Spain. Of the Tyrians, 
it is said, that they were " great merchants, great warriors, and 
great philosophers, and such expert navigators, that antiquity 
assigns them the honor of inventing the " cynosura," or Pole 
Star, which, from them, was called " Phoenice." They far 
surpassed all other ancient nations in commercial enterprises ; 
and we are not without very strong reasons for supposing 
that they owed much of their greatness to the possession of 
the mariner's compass, notwithstanding the invention of that 
instrument, like that of gunpowder, and the art of printing 
from movable blocks, is supposed to be of modern date. 

And this is the people to whom, in the providence of God, 
Solomon was indebted, next to God, for the elements of his 
own greatness ; and by whom he was aided in constructing the 
first temple ever erected on this earth, and dedicated to the 
worship of the living God. 



* See And. Geog., sub voce. 



17 

You can not accuse me of giving undue prominence to these 
men of the Sea, seeing that they occupy so large a space, both 
in the historic and prophetic writings of the Old Testament, 
where they are spoken of as " situate at the entry of the Sea." 
" A merchant of the people for many isles ;" and their city, " the 
merchant city," whose merchants were princes, and whose 
" traffickers were the honorable of the earth." She " heaped 
up silver as the dust," and " fine gold as the mire of the street," 
through the instrumentality of a commerce, which prophecy 
declared should be "holiness to the Lord" (Isa. xxiii. 18). 
What is still more remarkable of this people, is the fact, that, 
though they flourished so abundantly while maintaining friendly 
intercourse with the people of God, and, perhaps, in some 
sense, even with Jehovah Himself (see 1 Kings, v. 7-12). Yet, 
when they lifted up their voice against His chosen, and, in their 
pride, joined with their persecutors, God lifted up His hand 
against them, and their commercial greatness ceased. For it 
is written : " Because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, 
Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people ; she is 
turned unto me ; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid 
waste. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God ; Behold, I am 
against thee, Tjtus, and will cause many nations to come up 
against thee, as the Sea causeth his waves to come up " (Ezek. 
xxvi. 2 and 3). " Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast 
said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the 
seas ; yet thou art a man, and not God, and thou shalt die the 
deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas " (Ezek. 
xxviii. 2). 

I have spoken of Tyre as among the first of navigators, and 
as associated, more particularly, with the people of God. But, 
in looking at the influence of the sailor on the destinies of the 
world, it must not be forgotten that navigation counts its 
heroes among other nations, who have moved into the front 
ranks of civilization and human progress, e. g., 

B.C. 2000, Semiramis carried her conquests as far as the 
Ganges, and returned, as did Nearchus, at a later date, down 
the Indus to the Indian Ocean. Even Semiramis, therefore, 
owed her greatness, in some measure, to her fleet. 

B.C. 1600, Cecrops migrated from Egypt and founded Athens. 
2 



18 

From the Institutes of Menu, the most celebrated code of 
Indian laws, civil and religious, we learn that an extensive 
commerce was carried on in the Indian Ocean one thousand 
two hundred years B.C., and regulated by law. 

B.C. 1600, Sesostris, the Egyptian, built, on the Eed Sea, a 
fleet of four hundred sail, for the purpose of conquering the 
maritime regions of Africa, and subjugating India. He sub- 
dued, by force of arms, Ethiopia, Arabia, Lybya, and the 
greater part of Asia, and then invaded Europe. 

About the year 1263 B.C., Jason, a prince of Iolchos, fitted 
out an armed galley, with a crew of fifty men, and sailed for 
Colchis, to bring back the Golden Fleece, which is generally 
believed, when stripped of its mythological character, to mean, 
simply, to secure some portion of the riches of that country, which 
resulted from their trade with India.* The commerce of India, 
in those days, was brought through Bactria, and the northern 
provinces of Persia, and floated down the Oxus into the Caspian 
Sea. On reaching the western shore, it was carried across the 
Caucassian range, and, on the waters of the Phasis, was borne 
down to the Black Sea. I will not detain you by recounting 
the voyage of the Argo, and all its incidents. Yet, it may be 
well to say, that its connection with the advancements of that 
age was similar to that of the Spanish caravels, under Colum- 
bus, in 1492. It was simply a pioneer movement — a voyage to 
a seat of ancient commerce. 

B.C. 617, Pharaoh Necho sent a fleet of the Phoenicians 
from Arsinoe, down the Red Sea, to circumnavigate Africa. 



* " The original facts on which this mythological story is founded, can not 
now be recalled ; but it is generally supposed to represent some bold commer- 
cial expedition, that overstepped the previous discoveries of its age ; or, more 
probable still, the series of enterprises, by which Greek maritime knowledge was 
extended to the furthest shores of the Euxine." — See Brande's Ency. of Lit. and 
Art, sub. voce. 

"A due mixture of fable, in a case like this, is a proof of genuine antiquity ; 
yet, as many fables in antiquity unquestionably arose from the ambiguities of 
language, some attention is due to the ingenious conjecture which supposes that 
the story of the Golden Fleece had its origin in a misconception, or a play of 
words — the word which signifies wealth, or a treasure, in the Phoenician language 
(malori), resembling that which, in Greek, means a fleece (mallori). Phoenicians 
probably had a share in the expedition ; and the pilot. Ancaeus, is said to have 
been of that nation." — Vid. Lard. Cyclop. His., vol. i., p. 15. 



19 

They accomplished the task, and, in the third year, entered 
the pillars of Hercules. Fifty years later, Darius sent a fleet 
down the Indus, from Cabul to the Indian Ocean, and up the 
Red Sea, to Suez. At a still later date, Grecian enterprise, 
under Alexander the Great, sent a fleet of two thousand sail 
from the Punjab Territory, down the Indus to the Persian Gulf ; 
than which, no expedition, in ancient or modern times, has 
effected more magnificent results. It is said to have produced 
a greater revolution in the knowledge of the globe than any 
other event in history. 

But, B.C. 480, just one hundred years before Alexander 
made the conquest of the East, the Persian monarch meditated 
the destruction of Europe, and planned an expedition to the 
West, which, if it had succeeded, would have crushed out 
liberty and the fine arts all over Greece, and, in its stead, 
inundated Europe with Oriental luxury and despotism, and thus 
would have prevented the subsequent spread of the Greek lan- 
guage in the East, which became so universally the vehicle of 
communication for the precious Gospel to the nations. 

Xerxes invaded Greece by land and sea, having the largest 
armament, as is supposed, ever assembled in the world. It is 
estimated at about one million men, and one thousand four 
hundred vessels of war. Thirty extra troops were added to 
each of these vessels. The Persian naval commanders were 
little versed in nautical affairs, and many of the crews were 
inland men. The Grecian fleet numbered, all told, three hun- 
dred and eighty sail. But they were manned by seamen, who 
had passed most of their lives amid the dangers of the JEgean, 
and who had been baptized unto liberty a thousand times by 
the saucy white caps of the Adriatic. The rival fleets met in 
the Bay of Salamis, at daybreak, on the 20th of October. The 
onset was terrible, not less so, really, than that of the land 
forces, on the devoted band of Leonidas, at Thermopylae ; and 
the destruction as swift ; for. before the evening shadows were 
thrown from the Corinthian acropolis, the Persians and their 
allies were routed, and the beaks of the Grecian galleys 
crowned with victory. Then was the oracle fulfilled, and the 
" wooden wall of the Triton-born goddess " was " impregnable." 
Then " brass engaged with brass, and Mars reddened the Sea 



20 

with blood." Then " the far-thundering son of Saturn," and 
li benign victory," brought " a day of freedom to Greece." — 
Herodotus, viii. 77. 

11 'Twas then that Athens the foundation laid 
Of Liberty's fair structure." — Plut. Vit., p. 96. 

Thus, though indirectly, was the cause of God again benefited 
by the men of the Sea. Or, in other words, the Sea and sailor 
were chosen of God to work out His designs, and preserve 
Europe intact from the emasculating curse of Oriental tyranny 
and bondage ; that it might be free, in His own good time and 
way, to receive and disseminate the Gospel of Christ. 

Again, in the history of the world, the Sea is called on 
to act the pioneer for the Church ; to be a sort of John 
Baptist, to " prepare the way of the Lord." I refer to that 
remarkable sea-fight off the Promontory of Actium, in which 
the forces of Octavius Cassar met the combined fleets of Mark 
Antony and Cleopatra, on the 2nd of September, in the year 
.31 B.C., and gained the victory over them. Do you ask, 
What connection had this sea-fight with the Church of Christ ? 
Simply this : Rome had gone on in her career of conquest, 
until nation after nation had yielded to her armies, and her 
standards were planted on every shore, from the Euphrates, on 
the East, to the island of Britain, on the West. But there was 
one dead fly in the apothecary's ointment — one obstacle to 
perfect tranquility in the empire of Rome. 

Mark Antony, having married Octavia, the sister of Augus- 
tus, afterward repudiated her, and publicly married Cleopatra, 
the celebrated Queen of Egypt. As a result of this conduct, 
the dissembled friendship, which had existed between Octavius 
and Antony, terminated. Each made preparations for war. 
Their forces met in Mare Ionium, off Actium, where the sailors 
of Rome gained a brilliant victory over a superior force. That 
victory secured peace ; a peace in which the Temple of Janus 
was closed, an event which had occurred but twice before 
in seven hundred years ; first, in the reign of Numa Pompilius, 
and, second, after the first Punic War. But, above all, the 
result of that fight was, the peace in which Christ, the Prince 
of Peace, was born. 



21 

Strange ! some will say, that the agency of the sailor should 
be required to bring about this glorious event. I grant it 
strange, but not more strange than true. It is but a striking 
evidence of the fact, that God 

" Plants His footsteps on the Sea." 

Again, when, in the passage of years, Turkish arrogance and 
bigotry, like that of the Persian of old, had arrayed its forces, 
and gathered its strength, for the purpose of blotting out 
Christian civilization from the map of Europe, and flooding it 
with the religion of the Mohammedan imposter, in 1571, 
Christian sailors met them in the Gulf of Lepanto, and over- 
whelmed them with defeat, thus breaking the right arm of 
Saracenic power, and preserving Europe from the curse of the 
Moslem. But for this, the crescent would have triumphed over 
the Cross, and the glorious light of the Reformation, then just 
breaking upon the moral darkness of the world, would have 
been obscured, in all probability, for centuries to come. All 
honor, then, to the hardy sons of the Sea, whose valor, and 
energy, and persevering effort secured, by the grace of God, 
both to Europe and America, that freedom of thought and 
freedom of action they enjoy this day ! 

In 1588, seventeen years later, British seamen met the very 
forces which, under Don John, had defeated the Turk at 
Lepanto, and which, under the appellation of the " Invincible 
Armada" came to inflict as great a curse on England — to bind 
the subjects of "good Queen Bess." as she was facetiously 
called, to the behest of a foreign potentate, and kill Protestant- 
ism in its stronghold. The skill and bravery of the sailor were 
again called into requisition, and, in the providence of God, 
the wind and Sea fought with them for Elizabeth, as the stars, 
in their courses, fought with Zebulon and Naphthali, for Deborah 
of old. " The storms of heaven (says the historian of that 
period), the boisterous Sea, the valor of Christian sailors, and 
the fire of Antwerp/ 7 saved old England for liberty and God. 

One more fact, that indicates the mutual relation and 
dependence of these two great forces, is seen in the direction 
which commerce has taken since the Reformation, in the six- 
teenth century. All the commerce of the world, at this day, as 



22 

far as the Sea is concerned, is in the hands of Christian nations. 
Outside of a direct revelation, no brighter evidence of the 
purpose of God, in relation to the spread of the Gospel, by the 
men of the Sea, could possibly be given than this. Nor is this 
all. The commerce of the Sea, the carrying trade of the 
world, is not only in the hands of nominally Christian nations, 
but, also, nominally Protestant nations. France may be deemed 
an exception to this statement, but her commercial marine is 
comparatively small beside that of Great Britain and the 
United States, and the Dutch and Scandinavian ports of the 
North of Europe. In our own land, we have, on the Atlantic 
seaboard — to say nothing of our Pacific coast, now springing 
up into importance — a coast line of twenty-four thousand miles, 
and a merchant marine, which exceeds in tonnage that of 
Great Britain, with all her colonies. 

And who are they, I ask, who have now access to, and influ- 
ence among, the formerly exclusive Celestials ? Who will have 
the ruling influence in the affairs of China, Japan, and India, 
and the Isles of Oceanica, for a century to come ? Who, but 
the nations who are now considered in the very vanguard of 
civil and religious liberty, and who, in the providence of God, 
have been the conservators of, and are now to be the dissemi- 
nators of the Word of God ? The white wings of a Christian 
commerce are fitly represented by the Angel of the Apocalypse, 
flying in the midst of the heavens, bearing the everlasting Gos- 
pel. Is it not strange, then, that the Church of God should 
have allowed the right-hand of her power to hang useless at 
her side, until almost paralyzed ? To drop the figure, is it not 
unaccountably strange that the Church of Christ, to whom He 
gave the command, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
Gospel," should have refused, until within the last half century, 
to avail herself of so valuable and efficient an auxiliary, as that 
which is found ready to her hand in the men of the Sea ? A 
question may arise lfere, and I may as well anticipate it, viz., 
Is this marvelous arrangement, this wondrous adaptation of 
means to an end, merely fortuitous, or is it in accordance with 

the Purpose of God? 

— I answer, There is here no chance; no fortuitous concurrence of 
events. We should be warranted in saying this from what we 



23 

know of God, though we had no distinct and clear revelation 
on this subject. But He has not left us to doubt and conjecture 
in a matter so grave as this. He has expressly declared His 
purpose to use the sailor, and to make the Sea the handmaid 
of the Church of Jesus Christ. " To the law, then, and to the 
testimony.'' The trump of God gives no uncertain sound. Our 
inquiry will carry us back to the time when the world and the 
Church were both shut up within the wooden walls of a ship — 
not by chance, but by a divine command ; not instinctively 
drawn together by a common desire for safety, but led by 
inspiration, and inclosed by the hand of God Himself: for God 
shut them in. The ship, then, and the Church were identical, 
and the Sea bore up the frail vessel on its mighty palm in 
safety, as if calmly conscious of the value of the precious trea- 
sure intrusted to its care. The Sea is still loyal to its Creator ; 
still obedient to His command, as when He gave to it its decreed 
place, and shut it up with bars and bolts, to restrain it from 
transgressing its divinely-appointed limits ; and as when it 
yielded to the Saviour's " Peace, be still ! " 

Another event in the history of the children of God, asso- 
ciates the Sea very closely with the Church, and that, too, by 
divine command. I speak now of the passage of the Red Sea, 
when, at the bidding of Jehovah, the mighty waters rolled 
back. He commanded, and the "floods stood upright as a 
heap : the depths were congealed in the heart of the Sea." 
" The waters were a wall unto them on the right hand and on 
the left." The Israelites passed through dry shod, which the 
Egyptians essaying to do, were drowned. " He blew with His 
wind, the Sea covered them ; they sank like lead in the mighty 
waters." As He used the Sea, so He declares that He will use 
the men of the Sea, as the ministers of His grace to the nations. 
This is left beyond all possibility of doubt by the express 
promises of His own Word, which form a connected chain, 
from the days of Jacob to the conversion of the world. You 
have all read, doubtless, that remarkable prophecy in the forty- 
ninth of Genesis, in which the Patriarch, with prophetic fore- 
sight, perceives the subsequent history of his own descendants 
to the remotest generations. Concerning two of the tribes, 
Zebulon and Naphthali, he said : " Zebulon shall dwell at the 



24 

haven of the Seas ; and he shall be for a haven of ships ; and 
his border shall be unto Zidon" (Gen. xlix. 13) : and " Naphthali 
is a hind let loose : he giveth goodly words" (xlix. 21). In 
the reiteration of this promise, or prophetic disclosure, by 
Moses, two hundred and forty years afterward, as recorded in 
Deut. (xxxiii. 18, 19, 23), it is said : " Rejoice, Zebulon, in thy 
going out; and, Issachar, in thy tents. They shall call the 
people unto the mountain ; there they shall offer sacrifices of 
righteousness ; for they shall suck of the abundance of the Sea, 
and of the treasures hid in the sand." And, " Naphthali, 
satisfied with favor, and full of the blessings of the Lord." 

Seven years after the death of Moses, the people having taken 
possession of the land, under the leadership of Joshua, it was 
divided unto them by lot; nine tribes and a half on the West of 
the Jordan, and two and a half on the East. Here we see the 
fulfillment of that proverb, '' The lot is cast into the lap, but the 
ivhole disposition of it is with the Lord.' 1 For the lot was cast, 
but God so controlled the lot, as to evince the truthfulness of 
His own promise, and carry out His own purpose. The lot of 
Zebulon fell to him at a place where was a " haven for ships," 
including the beautiful bay of Acre, at the foot of Mount Car- 
mel. Joshua says (xix. 10) : " The third lot came up for the 
children of Zebulon, according to their families, and their 
border went up toward the Sea." The boundaries of these two 
tribes are then given. Josephus says : " The tribe of Zebulon's 
lot included the land which lay as far as the Lake of Gennesaret, 
and that which belonged to Carmel and the Sea " (Ant. v. 1. 22.) 
The Hebrew Rabbi Schwarz, who labored many years to dis- 
cover the true boundaries of the tribes, says : " The whole pro- 
phecy of Jacob always refers to the possessions in the Holy 
Land ; and the plural t^a" 1 Seas, says plainly that Zebulon 
should have the coasts of two Seas in his territory, which 
would then give us the respective shores of the Mediterranean 
and Chinnereth." The southern boundary line of Zebulon 
went, therefore, westward from the lake of Gennesaret to 
Mount Tabor, then ran further to Doberoth, thence northerly 
toward Shion, thence to Mount Carmel, to the River Kishon, to 
the vicinity of Akko (or Acre). At the northeast, Zebulon 
extended to Tajichum, thence the line ran westerly to Kitron, 



25 

thence it extended in a long and narrow strip to the vicinity of 
Zidon. So that a small part of this territory touched the Med- 
iterranean " (Schwarz Geog. Pales, pp. 179 and 180). This 
learned geographer, says again Zidon Rabba, the Great Zidon 
is at present called Saicla, and is a small, pretty town, with a 
small harbor. Without the town is shown the grave of Zebu- 
Ion, son of Jacob, whom the Arabs call Scheik Saida, Chief of 
Zidon ; this would argue that the town belonged to Zebulon " 
(Ibid, 193) . And again : " Asher's territory was West of Naph- 
thali, and had, therefore, nearly the whole coast of the Mediter- 
ranean, from Carinel to Zidon, only that Zebulon had a narrow 
strip on the Sea coast, as already stated above (p. 204). Here, 
then, is evidence that the Jews were intimately associated with 
the earliest navigators, and if the promise means anything, they 
were not idle spectators of the stirring scenes enacted in the 
harbors, and along the quays of Tyre and Zidon. Moses had 
exhorted the sons of Zebulon, in view of their advantage, to 
" rejoice in their going out, and declared that they should call 
the people unto the mountain, and offer sacrifices of righteous- 
ness," and " suck of the abundance of the Seas," in other words, 
they should aid in establishing spiritual worship, setting them- 
selves the example, and should derive their wealth from the 
commerce of the Seas, as New York, and Liverpool, and Lon- 
don do, at the present clay. Another remarkable feature in this 
prophecy is to be noted, because we shall have need of it to 
explain some things, which, in their fulfillment, look back to 
this germ of thought, planted in the Hebrew mind thousands 
of years ago. I mean the declaration of Jacob, with reference 
to Naphthali, viz., that " He giveth goodly words,' 7 or what is now 
known to us as the svayyehov of the Greeks, the Evangelium of 
the Latins, and the Gods-spel, good speech or tidings, of the 
Saxon, contracted into our word " Gospel.' 1 '' Now is the great 
truth indeed before us. Zebulon is to " rejoice in his going out " 
from his haven " of the Seas" (in his " ships," doubtless), and 
Naphthali is to be employed in carrying the Gospel. 

Let us see whether this is a mere fanciful exposition, or 
whether God, in His wisdom, has revealed the means of arriv- 
ing at its fulfillment ; or, has God accomplished anything that, 
in its detail, corresponds to these promises. 



26 

The two tribes of Zebulon and Naphthali are mentioned 
again by the Prophet Isaiah, (ix. 12), in which, having fore- 
told impending calamities, he comforts them in these words, 
viz.: " Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her 
vexation, when, at the first, he lightly afflicted the land of 
Zebulon and the land of Naphthali, and afterward did more 
grievously afflict her by the way of the Sea, beyond Jordan, in 
Galilee, of the nations. The people that walked in darkness 
have seen a great light : they that dwell in the land of the 
shadow of death, upon them hath the light sinned," i. e., 
These people, whose extreme northern location had exposed 
them to the incursions of their enemies, and to direct inter- 
course with idolatrous people, and whose k ' going out " from 
their " haven of ships " had brought them into contact with 
those whose moral character was not calculated to benefit them, 
are assured that their spiritual darkness and affliction shall be 
relieved by the coming of Him, who is the light of the world, 
and " the Sun of Righteousness." 

" It was in this benighted and degraded region (says Dr. J. 
A. Alexander, in loco), that Christ first appeared as a messenger 
from God ; and, in that appearance, we are expressly taught that 
this prediction was fulfilled." When we turn to the life of the 
Saviour for the evidence of this, we read (in Matt. iv. 12-22) 
as follows : 

" Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, 
He departed into Galilee ; and leaving Nazareth, He came and 
dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the Sea coast, in the borders 
of Zebulun and Nephthalim : that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by Esaias, the prophet, saying : ' The land of Zebu- 
lun, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the Sea, beyond 
Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sat in dark- 
ness saw great light ; and to them which sat in the region and 
shadow of death light is sprung up.' From that time Jesus 
began to preach, and to say, ' Repent : for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand/ And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, 
saw two brethren, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his 
brother, casting a net into the Sea : for they were fishers. And 
He saith unto them, ' Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of 
men.' And they straightway left their nets, and followed Him. 



27 

And going on from thence, He saw other two brethren, James, 
the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in a ship with Zebe- 
dee, their father, mending their nets ; and He called them. 
And they immediately left the ship and their father, and fol- 
lowed Him." 

What clearer evidence of the true import of the prophecy, 
or what more complete fulfillment could be looked for than 
this ? It is literally fulfilled. The men of the waters are here 
the chosen ones, who are to go forth as the pioneers of divine 
truth, and proclaim the Gospel to all the world. " Not many 
mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the 
weak things of this world to confound the mighty, and things 
that are not to bring to naught the things that are, that no 
flesh may glory in His presence " (1 Cor. i. 26, 27, 29). 

The Evangelists tell us that Jesus " began to teach and to 
preach by the Sea side." And here it is declared that the men 
of the waters were the first trophies of divine grace under the 
preaching of the Gospel, for " they immediately left the ship 
and their father, and followed Him." And what is very re- 
markable, of the twelve whom He chose, seven of the first eight 
named were fishermen. Five of them; viz., Peter, Andrew, 
James, John, and Philip, were of the tribe of Naphthali ; and 
two, viz., Nathaniel and Matthew, were of the tribe of Zebulon. 
The two tribes, of whom it was said, of one that he should 
" rejoice in his going out," and of the other, that he should be 
the bearer of the Gospel, and " full of the blessing of the Lord." 

Should the question arise, Are we to consider this act of 
Christ's as symbolical of the fact, that the Church, in after 
ages, is to follow His example in this matter ? The answer is 
given in the promise of God by the prophet (Isa. lx. 5), twen- 
ty-five centuries ago. When he was describing the latter day 
glory of the Messiah's kingdom, and the extension of His 
Church among the nations, he adverted to the means of its 
accomplishment by saying : " Because the abundance of the Sea 
shall be converted unto Thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall 
CQnie unto Thee. Or, when the abundance of the Sea — or the 
multitude of the Sea — shall be converted unto Thee, then the 
forces of the Gentiles shall come unto Thee." 

Lest I should be considered as giving a forced construction 



28 

to these phrases, " abundance of the Sea," and " forces of the 
Gentiles," I prefer giving you the language of one who can not 
be accused of having any design save the expounding of the 
text. Dr. J. A. Alexander (in loco) says : " We may safely 
infer that it was the intention of the writer to convey the 
whole idea, that the Gentiles should devote themselves and 
their possessions to the service of Jehovah." Of the conver- 
sion, he says : " The conversion here predicted has the same 
sense as in English, viz., the conversion of the property of one 
to the use of another. And of the whole prophecy, he states : 
" The most natural interpretation of the verse is that which 
makes it a promise of indefinite enlargement (i. e., of Christ's 
kingdom), comprehending both the persons and the riches of the 
nations." The Chaldee paraphrase renders it : "Then shall be 
transferred to thee (i. e., the Church) the wealth of the West." 
The LXX. has: << nlovros Oalaoor^" — "riches of the Sea." 
Barnes, on Isaiah, says : " The idea is, that the wealth possess- 
ed by distant lands — lands beyond the Sea, or surrounded by 
the Sea, should be devoted to the Church of God, an idea 
denoting the great prosperity of the Church, when all lands 
should come under the- influence of the truth." 

My own understanding of this passage is, that in the latter 
days our Redeemer " shall have dominion from sea to sea," and 
that the wealth, the influence, and the multitudes of the men 
of the Sea, shall be converted to the service of God — all to be 
used in the spread of the Gospel ; and that through the dis- 
semination of the truth, by these agencies, it shall be received 
among all nations, and Christ be glorified as they flock — like 
doves to their windows — into His Church. For Isaiah describes 
the ships of Tarshish, or of a foreign commerce, as first, or in 
the front rank, of those who are to bring the sons of the Church 
" from afar, their silver and their gold with them." 

Presuming that these truths will be received without a 
shadow of a doubt, as to their truthful exposition, I might 
well rest the matter here. But it will scarcely do to presume 
that so large an audience as this does not contain some who 
do not embrace the truth. There are some, too, doubtless, 
who, while they do embrace the truth, may yet consider this 
exposition fanciful, and forced to sustain a preconceived theory. 



29 

To such I can say, if there be any, I have no interest in sus- 
taining any theory that is not in accordance with Truth and 
Holiness ; and more, I can afford, in this matter, to throw this 
exposition entirely out of the account, to cast it to the winds, 
and then can prove, to a demonstration, if you please, the utter 
impossibility of the conversion of the world without the agency 
of the men of the Sea. I speak reverently : God can do what 
He will, and send by whom He will send ; but while the present 
order of things remains, the sailor can not be dispensed with. 
If the time should ever come, when every rope-yarn is replaced 
by a wire thread, and every yard of canvas by a cubic foot of 
steam, or a Leyden jar,* the vessels must still be officered and 
manned by human agents, and they must be the witnesses for 
God among the nations. 

The only question to be discussed, therefore, is— as a glance 
at the map will show — not " Shall we use the sailor T We 
must use the sailor : we can not send our missionaries, but the 
sailor must carry them. Navigation is essential to t\\e spread 
of the truth. Even Yirgil, a heathen poet, declares that the 
approach of the " Golden Age " — a period answering to our 
Millennium — would be characterized by an enlarged commercial 
intercourse ; but that, after the establishing of that felicitous 
reign, there shall be no more need of the trafficker by Sea. 
His language is : 

u Pauca tamen suberunt priscse vestigia fraudis, 
Quae tentare Thetim ratibus, qua? cingere niuris. 
Oppida qure jubeant telluri infindere sulcos. 
Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo 
Delectos heroas : erunt etiam altera bella, 
Atque iterum ad Trqjam magnus mittetur Achilles. 
Hinc, ubi jam firmata virum te fecerit astas, 
Cedet et ipse Mari vector : nee nautica pinus 
Mutabit merces : omnis feret omnia tellus." 
b. iv. 31—39. 

At present, however, the question is — I repeat it — not ' : Shall 
we use the sailor ?" or " Is the sailor an auxiliary in this work ?." 



* Since the above was written the secret of compressing Electricity has been dis- 
covered. A small mortar was fired, by the inventor, at the rate of a hundred 
shots a minute, without flashing, smoke, or noise. The same power can, it is 
claimed, be adapted to every system of mechanical invention, and is destined to 
supersede steam, requiring neither machinery nor combustion for its successful 
operation. 



30 

No ! The question is, Shall we use the sailor as a sanctified 
agent, or as an tmsanctified one ? Shall we use him to pull 
down the strongholds of Satan, or to build them up? to aid 
the missionary, or to obstruct his labors ? to hasten on, or to 
retard the glory of the Millennial day ? 

It is true that, as a mass, the men of the Sea have set an ex- 
ample to the heathen ill befitting the representatives of Chris- 
tian lands. But is not the Church in some sense to blame ? 
" He is only a sailor," and " You can do him no good," are 
expressions that have often frustrated Christian effort, and led 
the poor sailor to feel " Refuge fails me ; no man cares for my 
soul." It is almost incredible that the Church should have so 
long ignored so useful a class of men, and a class, too, so well 
fitted, above all other men, to be the bearers of good tidings 
to all the nations of the earth. 

Look for a moment, if you please, in conclusion — 

I. At the adaptedness of these men to the missionary work ; 
and, 

II. At what has really resulted from the efficient labor of 
a few ; and then say what will be accomplished, by the grace 
of God, through these men, should they all become men of God, 
heirs of the Kingdom, and heralds of the Cross of Christ : 

First, then, their adaptedness to the work of missions. 

They possess, as a class, all the necessary qualifications of 
the missionary, save one. They lack one thing, viz., the new 
heart ; the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost. I speak 
now of the class. There are many noble and honorable ex- 
ceptions. 

Does the missionary need to practice self-denial ? The very 
occupation of these men is self-sacrificing. They have sympa- 
thies, affections, tastes, like other men ; but these are of neces- 
sity sacrificed by their calling, which requires them to leave 
home, the school, the Church, and all the pleasant amenities of 
life behind, and isolate themselves, for a season, from their fel- 
low-men ; and it is done cheerfully. There are no gloomy re- 
pinings at the hardness of their fate. They have independence 
of spirit like other men, but they yield even this to the disci- 
pline of the ship. Does the missionary need courage ? Sea- 
men were never considered wanting in this. Difficulties do 



31 

not appall them. They live in the midst of these, and are 
trained from childhood to surmount them or endure. They 
never say " I can't :" that sentence has no place in the sailor's 
vocabulary. They try. They have energy and enterprise, 
traits of character which, together with a noble daring, have 
ever allied their possessors to the gods. Witness a Columbus, 
a Bartolome' Dias, a Magellan, and a De Tries, a Hartstein, a 
Lynch, and a Maury. And are not the names of Paul Jones 
and Perry, of Warren and Rodgers, of McDonough and Deca- 
tur, of Nelson and Jervis, and a thousand others, the very 
synonyms of bravery itself? 

Is obedience to a divine command and to human instructions 
necessary? These men have learned, from their first essay at 
seamanship, to " obey orders if they break owners.' 7 Their 
practice is implicit obedience to all legitimate authority. Is 
money wanted ? They are proverbially prodigal of their 
money, generous to a fault, always benevolent, and what is 
more, on account of their extreme credulity, are as easy of 
access as any men on the face of the earth, if approached in the 
right way. But above all other indications of their fitness to 
share in the great and self-denying work of missions is, first, 
their acquaintance with the language of the globe, and, 
second, that by virtue of their very occupation they are self- 
sustaining men. It is by no means a rare thing to find a sailor 
speaking from two to seven different languages — not always 
in grammatical exactness, I admit, but well enough to convey an 
influence for good or ill that shall be coextensive with eternity 
itself. Now let this self-sacrificing spirit, this cheerfulness and 
independence, this familiarity with danger, this energy and 
enterprise, this obedience and credulity, and this knowledge of 
language, be but sanctified and set apart to the service of God, 
and there are no more efficient helpers in the service of Christ 
under the sun than these very men of the Sea. Let the Church 
avail herself of these living epistles that may be (literally) known 
and read of all men. Let her labor for the conversion of the 
sailor, if she would be "adorned as a bride for her husband!" 
By way of illustrating God's purpose with regard to these men, 
in the future, let me refer you to what He has done by a few, in 
the past, and what He is yet doing in the present. You will 



32 

then be ready to admit, I doubt not, that, in accordance with 
His own promise, He has made them u fishers of men." 

In order to measure fully the influence of even one man, it is 
necessary to take in, at a glance, all his relations and depend- 
encies for time and for eternity. If this immense grasp of intel- 
lect, this limitless extent of conception, be necessary for the full 
estimate of the influence of one man, who shall estimate the 
influence of an entire class, whose destiny it is to compass the 
globe, and whose energies are world-wide in their application ? 
Alas ! The effort is vain. Yet, because we can not fathom the 
depths of this vast ocean, shall we refuse to launch forth upon its 
surface? w vevolto ! Let it not once be! For though sailors 
have long been enveloped in a moral night, during which the Sun 
of Righteousness has obscured His beams, we have, nevertheless, 
many bright stars, by which to direct our course ; morning stars, 
which have heralded the coming day. Among these John New- 
ton, the sailor preacher, shines out with no ordinary brightness. 
He was the son of a sailor. At seven years of age he was 
called to mourn the loss of a pious mother, whose heart was 
daily poured out in prayer for her darling boy. At eleven, he 
went to sea, and entered upon a career of sin and folly that 
more than once came near proving fatal. At nineteen, he 
sailed for the coast of Guinea ; there he left the vessel, and for 
two years suffered from sickness, hunger, neglect, and cruelty, 
being for a time a servant of slaves. But affliction did not 
soften his heart. On his return voyage to England he was a 
bold blasphemer and an avowed infidel. So wicked was he, 
that at one time the crew, wicked as they were themselves, 
considered him a Jonah, and determined to throw him over- 
board, to appease the storm. He survived, however, reached 
home, and rose to the position of master. Subsequently, while 
in command of a slave ship, he was awakened to a sense of his 
lost condition as a sinner. He was brought low after this by 
affliction, and, on recovering from his sickness, studied for the 
ministry, and became Curate of Olney, whence, after near six- 
teen years of faithful ministry, he was removed to the city of 
London, and took the pastoral charge of the church of St. 
Mary Woolnoth, which he retained until his death in 1807, a 
period of twenty-eight years. 



33 

Among many trophies of grace, which God gave him as seals 
to his ministry, may be mentioned the Poet Cowper, Thomas 
Scott, the author of the Commentary on the Bible, and Claudius 
Buchanan, the devoted missionary to the East. Mr. Buchanan 
wrote a sermon, entitled the " Star in the East" which was 
published in England. A young man on this side of the 
Atlantic read it, and was fired with zeal for the salvation of the 
heathen world. He induced others to feel with him for the 
spiritual wants of the destitute. That young man was 
Acloniram Judson ; and his companions, Samuel Nott, Samuel 
J. Mills, Samuel Newell (husband of Harriet), James Richards, 
and Luther Rice, gave themselves to Christ, to go to the 
benighted of heathen lands. " It has been frequently said that 
the world is indebted to these young men, at Andover, for the 
formation of the A. B. C, F. M" (Life of Judson, vol.. L pv 44). 
Thus may the influence of Adoniram Judson, and of each of his 
noble and self-denying wives and companions, in that far-off 
land of spiritual darkness ; the faithfulness and missionary 
zeal of Buchanan ; the sweet influences of the poems and 
hymns of Cowper ; and the lucid, instructive, and practical 
Commentary on the Sacred Scriptures by Thomas Scott, all be 
traced to the influence, and sanctified energy, and Christian 
faithfulness of a converted sailor, a pious, devoted man of the 
Sea. 

Near the close of the life of John Newton, that noble fisher 
of men, God raised up another son of Neptune, whom he 
designed sending "far hence to the Gentiles," to proclaim to 
them the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

John Wilson, the son of a sailor, a captain in the New- 
castle coal trade, went to Sea at an early age, and rose in his 
profession, till he shipped as mate of an East Indiaman. He 
left her in Bengal, and entered the country service as master. 
By his intrepidity, while in that capacity, he succeeded, by 
bringing seasonable supplies, in rescuing the entire British 
army from famine, and saving the whole Carnatic. to English 
rule. Being taken prisoner afterward by the French, he 
experienced twenty-two months of refined cruelty in chains ; 
but, on an exchange of prisoners, was released. He remained 
in the country a season, for the purpose of trade, and, in a little 
3 



34 

while, amassed a fortune, on which, having returned to England, 
he retired and purchased a cottage at Horndean, in Hants. All 
this time he had " no hope," and was "without God in the world/ 7 
His character was that of an unbeliever. God, however, needed a 
man for a particular purpose, and, by divine grace, made Cap- 
tain Wilson "willing in the day of his power." Having 
brought him to a saving knowledge of Christ, the Lord called 
him to labor, and he, like Paul of old, asked, " Lord, what 
woulclst. thou have me to do ? " About the time of his conver- 
sion, a band of faithful men and women, in London, became 
deeply interested in the inhabitants of those beautiful isles of 
the Southern Ocean, and, while Captain "Wilson was asking 
that important question, " Lord, what woulclst thou have me to 
do ? " these Christian philanthropists were making the no less 
important inquiry, " Whom shall we send ? and who will go for 
as ? " Captain Wilson solved their difficulty, by saying to 
them, " Here am 7, send me." " With great modesty and diffi- 
dence, but with a decided purpose, he intimated, that if the 
Society could not find a better conductor — which he wished 
and hoped they might — the service should not be impeded for 
lack of nautical skill, and that he was ready, without other 
reward than the satisfaction resulting from the service, to devote 
himself to the work, with whatever inconvenience to himself it 
might be attended" {Mem. pp. 101, 102). 

There, indeed, spoke out the true sailor — the true Christian 
sailor. And they did send him. He took command of the good 
ship Buff. Gave himself, and more than two thousand five 
hundred dollars, to the mission, and " embarked once more on 
the deep, not to increase his substance, but to seek souls 
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb." On the 10th of May, 
1796, the Buff having on board thirty-six missionaries for the 
South Seas, and twenty-two officers and men, most of whom 
made profession of living under the influence of Christian prin- 
ciples, hoisted the missionary flag, bearing three white doves, 
with olive branches in their mouths, to the breeze, run her top- 
sails to the masthead, and stood out to sea on her mission of 
love. The missionaries were left at the different islands, and 
were blessed in their work. Twenty-two years of privation, 
and hardship, and disappointment, and patient waiting, brought 



35 

the looked-for success. At the end of that period, King Pomare 
built the largest church edifice in the world, at Tahiti, and 
called it the Royal Mission Chapel. It was seven hundred 
and twelve feet long, and fifty four feet wide, having three 
pulpits. An audience of six thousand persons were assembled 
at its dedication. In 1825, Mr. Tyerman wrote, " In twenty- 
one islands not an idolater remains," twelve thousand could 
read intelligibly, three thousand children were under instruc- 
tion, twenty-eight houses of worship were in existence, and 
eleven organized churches, with two thousand communicants, 
and eight thousand persons who had been baptized. The Sab- 
bath was scrupulously observed, and prayer-meetings were com- 
mon. Here, then, are results to which we can triumphantly point, 
when we hear the oft-repeated expression, " He is only a sailor." 
For it is not to be denied, that a large share of these benefits 
is to be attributed to the self-denial and devotional zeal of the 
sailor. It has been very pertinently asked, by the biographer 
of Captain Wilson, 

" Who would have looked for a commander of a Christian 
mission, in an impious and infidel sailor, chained in a prison at 
Seringapatam ? Who would have expected to have found the 
man who returned from India, contradicting and blaspheming 
the faithful leader in the missionary cause (see Mem., p. 29), 
within five years afterward, on the quarterdeck, in the midst of 
prayer and praise, carrying the everlasting Gospel to the isles 
of the Pacific Ocean ? " 

' A very remarkable result of Captain Wilson's conversion, 
which was itself a result of the faithfulness of a pious sea cap- 
tain, yet remains to be told. We have seen that the existence 
of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 
may be traced back to the pious efforts of the converted sailor, 
John Newton, and, strange to say, we can trace the origin of 
another extensive missionary enterprise, in this land, to Captain 
Wilson, of the ship Buff. 

Dr. A. Alexander states, that a copy of the narrative of this 
voyage was conveyed, by some one, to a village in Western 
Pennsylvania, in which was neither a church nor settled pastor. 
It went from house to house, and was extensively read. In one 
of the families was a bright, intelligent boy, who, though not 



36 

then pious, determined, after reading the memoir, that, if he 
should ever become pious, he would go as a missionary to the 
heathen. Shortly afterward the town was visited by a mis- 
sionary, a revival followed, and " conversions occurred in every 
family, without an exception, in which the little volume had 
been read." Among the first, was the boy of good resolutions. 
That boy is now Hon. Walter Lowrie, Corresponding Secretary 
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 

u Whom none name but to praise." 

' ; He commenced a course of preparation for the work of the 
ministry, and of a missionary. Circumstances, which he could 
not control, just as he was concluding his studies, gave an 
entire change to his subsequent life, but without in any degree 
calling off his mind and affection from the heathen world " 
(Sketches from Life, p. 422). He consecrated his first-born son, 
John C. Lowrie, to the work. He went to India, and, while 
there, laid the foundation of missionary operations in Northern 
India. A second son, Walter M., whose praise is in all the 
Churches, went to China and became a martyr to his Christian 
zeal ; a third son was " baptized for the dead,' 7 and is now 
breaking the bread of life to the degraded millions of the 
Celestial Empire. The names of Walter Lowrie and his 
missionary sons will ever be among the sacredly cherished in 
the record of Christian heroes. Yet these are but some of the 
fruits of the consecration to God of that noble son of the Sea. 

One might well pause here, and exclaim with Virgil's "Sinon" 
(though in a different spirit), "Ab uno disce omnes." 

But I can not forbear mentioning yet another illustration of 
the eminent usefulness of the sailor, when his soul is enlisted in 
the cause of Christ. 

About the time that the spirit of God was convincing 
Captain Wilson of "righteousness, temperance, and a judgment 
to come," He was also moving on the hearts of two brothers 
in Scotland, who were sea captains, and bringing Robert and 
James Haldane to the feet of Christ. 

James became a preacher of righteousness, at the age of 
twenty-six, and in the market-places and streets, and on the hill- 
sides of Scotland, this young sailor preached Jesus Christ, and 



37 

Him crucified, and that, too, at a time when religious Scotland, 
the land of Knox and the Covenanters, had relapsed into a 
cold and formal condition, that unfitted them for the reception 
of the simple truth, as it is in Christ. Thousands, however, 
among "the common people," heard the earnest sailor "gladly," 
and many were brought to distrust themselves, and rely solely 
on the blood and righteousness of Christ, for pardon and 
peace. 

Robert, the elder brother, sold his immense estates at Airthrey, 
for $350,000, intending to establish a mission in Bengal, at his 
own charges, and to enter personally upon the work. *But the 
East India government, at that time, refused to admit him and 
his companions into the territories under their control. He 
then devoted all his wealth to the education of young men for 
the ministry, of whom hundreds are now, doubtless, preaching 
"glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." He made 
a visit to Geneva and Montauban, at a period when the 
reformed doctrines taught by Calvin, that illustrious expositor 
of divine truth, had fallen into contempt, and although an 
ignorance of the French language, and the coldness of the 
professors, were difficulties in his way, yet, as he had never 
learned to say, "I can't," he tried to bring the " true Evangel" 
home to the hearts of the students of theology he found there. 
To this end, he formed a Bible-class among them, in the Semi- 
nary, and, like another Aquilla — "Expounded unto them the Word 
of God more perfectly" His earnestness and faithfulness were 
blessed of God, and followed by a revival of pure and unde- 
nted religion, in which Merle d 7 Aubign6, the historian of the 
Reformation, Rev. S. R. L. Gaussen, Theological Professor at 
Geneva ; the eminently successful and evangelical preacher 
Adolphe Monod, of Paris, Messrs. Malan, Galland, Pytt, Empi- 
tiez, and many others, who have been the master spirits of the 
Evangelical Church of France, during the present century, 
were, by the Holy Spirit, converted to Christ. Robert also 
purchased the Edinburg Circus, and converted it, and several 
similar places of amusement in the larger towns of Scotland, 
into tabernacles, or independent places of worship (Bib. Rep. 
1852, p. 683). While James, whose resources were compara- 
tively slender, threw his whole soul into an energetic scheme of 



38 

itinerant lay preaching, which extended over the whole face of 
Scotland, and to its farthest and least frequented islands 
(Ibid, 681). Captain Haldane used to preach upon the side of 
Calton Hill, and elsewhere, in his blue coat and bright buttons, 
with his hair powdered and tied behind ; when his field ser- 
mons were announced by the town drummer, and delivered 
sometimes in the teeth of magisterial authority, and even of 
military force (Ibid, 682). 

Of these two faithful and pious seamen, an English writer 
says : " He who had measured the depth and intensity of that 
granitic resistance, which the Scottish Church (now cold and 
dead), opposed to the introduction of the truth, was at no loss 
for instruments fitted to overcome it. Like those iron-headed 
steamers, which are now employed in Polar navigation, to 
plow their way through field, and floe, and pack ice, these two 
gallant, stately, and formidable vessels, with their prows 
sheathed in heaven-proof armor, and the fire of the Spirit in 
their bosoms," plowed their way through the ice of indifference 
in which -the Church had been so long bound. The immediate 
proximate result of the labors of these two devoted brothers, 
was, that Scotland was moved to her very centre by the lever 
of Evangelical truth, in the hands of these men. Who shall 
compute the sheaves which, in the great harvest day, will be 
gathered from the seed sown by these faithful, zealous, and self- 
denying men of the Sea ? 

But we need not go to England or Scotland for examples 
while we have so many in our own day and land, aye, and in 
our own Churches, too. While I speak our own seamen are scat- 
tering the Word of God in every land, and on every Sea. These 
lips have, during the past year, preached the Gospel to sea- 
men, representing sixty different nationalties, and speaking more 
than a hundred and fifty different languages, many of whom have 
given the best possible evidence of their interest in Christ, in 
the laborious efforts they are putting forth, for the conversion 
of the world. I have, in my possession, volumes — not pages — 
but volumes of correspondence on this subject, going to show 
their zealous cooperation in the work of disseminating the 
Gospel of Christ among the nations of the earth. 

Yet how few, even in the Church of Christ, think enough of 



39 

the sailor to give Mm one iota of credit or encouragement, or 
offer for him a solitary prayer ! Who ever eulogizes the sailor 
for his faithfulness to Christ ? We often hear of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, but who ever thinks to give any credit to the pilgrim 
sailors, without whom the Pilsrim Fathers and mothers miorht 
never have been known to history ? 

Yet, if we read the record of the historian aright, the sailors 
of that early day — the crew of the May Flower, the Delight, 
the Fortune and the Ann — were not wholly uninterested spec- 
tators of the godly lives of the early settlers of Salem and 
of Plymouth Rock. The five ships sent out from England, 
after the Charter of Massachusetts had been procured, seem to 
have been manned by seamen who feared the Lord. They 
brought three hundred and fifty emigrants, among whom 
were some ministers of the Gospel. The historian says : 
" Divine service was performed during the voyage. They 
caused the ocean, which they traversed, to resound with the 
unwonted acclaim of praise and thanksgiving to its Creator. 
The seamen, partaking their spirit, readily joined in all their 
religious exercises and ordinances, and expressed their belief that 
they had practiced the first sea-fasts that had ever been kept in the 
world" 

Another fact of interest presents itself in the early history 
of this country, showing the connection between the Sea and 
the Church, viz., that the first hundred guilders given toward 
the building of a church in the New Netherlands i. e., Xew 
York, was the free will offering of a pious sailor, the old 
Dutch admiral, De Tries. Again, a New York sailor, who 
was converted at Sea, a few years ago, engaged in tract distri- 
bution, and while passing through the wards of the city hos- 
pital, laid a tract on the breast of a sleeping sailor, who, on 
waking, read, believed, repented, and was converted to Christ. 
He was a Swede, and through his instrumentality, a prayer- 
meeting was established on the North River. Out of that 
prayer-meeting grew the organization of a Scandinavian Church, 
and the Bethel Ship, John Wesley, which has already sent out 
forty-one Swedish and Norwegian missionaries, all seamen, who 
are now laboring in this and other lands. 

A sailor, converted at the Mariner's church, in Roosevelt 



40 

street, went to Sweden, and was the means of organizing many 
Evangelical Churches in that land. He was subsequently 
imprisoned, then exiled, and is now laboring in Wisconsin, 
where he has organized more than a dozen Churches of Christ. 
Yet once more. A Scottish sailor, converted in the same 
church of which I am now Pastor, is now in England, preach- 
ing the faith which he once destroyed, where hundreds of souls 
have been given him as seals to his ministry. If it were not 
egotism, I would speak of myself, once a reckless and blas- 
pheming sailor, and now, by the grace of God, preaching to a 
prosperous Church of seamen, in the great metropolis of the 
Union, and, by the kindness of you, my brethren, chosen to 
plead the cause of the sailor before you to-day. 

But I must not further tax your patience. If, as a result of 
this address, one of the Alumni of Old Lafayette, or one in this 
large audience, shall have become sufficiently interested in 
behalf of the two millions of the Sea, who are scattered over 
the surface of the great waters, like sheep without a shepherd, 
to offer one fervent prayer for them, at the throne of grace, my 
labor will not have been spent in vain. May I not, then, in 
conclusion, brethren of the Alumni of Lafayette — may I not, 
I say, appeal to you, and to you. young gentlemen, who are 
soon to become Alumni, in behalf of this interesting class of 
men. If it be true, as I believe it is, that the Sea is dependent 
upon the Church for the sanctifying influence by which it is to 
be redeemed from the power of the evil one, and from a con- 
tinued pandering to the corrupt desires of men of corrupt minds, 
to whom gain is godliness ; and, if the Church is dependent for 
her existence in other lands, and for her final triumphs among 
, all the nations of the earth, on the sanctified instrumentality 
of the men of the Sea ; will you not labor and toil, and watch 
and pray, to the end that the abundance of the Sea may be 
converted unto God, and the force of the Gentiles be brought, 
and, like the gold and frankincense and myrrh, in the days of 
old, be laid at the Saviour's feet ! Then shall His " kingdom 
come, and His will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven," 
and His, "and His alone, " shall be the kingdom and the honor, 
and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen." 



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